The Adultress by Philippa Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

door and looked out but I could see nothing.
    The incident was certainly not conducive to sleep. I lay there listening.
    It must have been half an hour or so later when I heard footsteps again. This time I slipped out of bed and stood behind the door, waiting.
    Yes, they had paused at my door and the handle was slowly turned. This time I did not speak. I stood pressed against the wall, waiting, while the door opened slowly.
    I had been expecting the stately figure of Jessie, but to my amazement it was a young girl who could not have been more than twelve years old who entered. She went straight to the bed and gasped to see it empty. By this time I had shut the door and, leaning against it, said: “Hello. What do you want?”
    She spun round and stared at me, her eyes wide and bright. I think if I had not been barring her way she would have rushed out of the room.
    My fears had ebbed away. I saw at once that instead of a rather sinister presence all I had to deal with was a curious little girl.
    “Well,” I said, “why have you come to pay me a visit at such an hour? It’s very late, you know.”
    Still she said nothing. She stared down at her bare feet showing beneath her nightgown.
    I went toward her. She looked at me in panic and I could see that she was preparing to make a dash for the door.
    “Now you are here,” I said, “and I must say in a rather unceremonious fashion, I think you owe me an explanation.”
    “I … I only wanted to see you.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Evalina.”
    “And what are you doing here in this house … who are your parents?”
    “We live here. This is my mama’s house really. …”
    I knew then. There was a faint resemblance. I said: “You must be Jessie’s daughter?”
    She nodded.
    “I see, and you live here in your mother’s house?”
    “It’s Lordy’s really. …”
    “Whose?”
    “The old man. Lord Eversleigh’s his real name. But we always call him Lordy.”
    “We … ?”
    “It’s my mama’s name for him.”
    “I see. And he is a very great friend of yours, I suppose, since he lets you live in his house and call him Lordy.”
    “He couldn’t do without us.”
    “Does he say so?”
    She nodded.
    “Why did you creep into my bedroom?”
    “I saw you when you came.”
    “I saw you. You were at the top of the staircase.”
    “You didn’t see me.”
    “I did. You should be a little more careful. You do seem to get caught. Look at you now.”
    “Are you going to tell on me?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll see when I have finished the interrogation.”
    “The what?” She looked frightened, as though she feared some terrible ordeal.
    “I’m going to ask you some questions. A lot will depend on how you answer.”
    “My mother would be angry. She gets angry sometimes. She’d say I was careless not to make sure you were asleep before I came in.”
    “So it would have been quite acceptable if you had not been caught.”
    She looked at me in wonderment. “Of course.”
    “A strange philosophy,” I said.
    “You do talk funny. Why have you come here? Is it to make trouble with Lordy?”
    “I came because Lordy—as you call him—invited me.”
    “My mother is cross with him about that. She can’t understand how he could ask you without telling her. She’s asking a lot of questions … who took the message, and all that. I reckon there’ll be a terrible row.”
    “Why shouldn’t Lord Eversleigh invite whom he wishes to his house?”
    “Well, he should ask mama first, shouldn’t he?”
    “Is your mother the housekeeper here?”
    “Well, it’s all different, you know.”
    “In what way?”
    She giggled. Her face, which had seemed innocent at one stage, had become rather sly. She might be young but she was knowledgeable in some matters and she managed to convey a meaning to the relationship between her mother and Lord Eversleigh which had come to me as a possibility and now seemed a certainty.
    This child was not the innocent I had been imagining.